The Consequences Of Inaction
by TracyJean
Summary: The Author's Pen has written three new stories with revelations which put Henry at odds with his mother and leads to new fears for part of his family. The story takes place the day after the events of 5x17 "Her Handsome Hero" and does not take into account the events of 5x18 "Ruby Slippers."
**Author's notes** : _In my review of "Devil's Due" (found on my Tumblr, teacupsroses, under the link for FIFTEEN LINES), I got very pissed off at Emma revealing to Milah her vision of Neal when she hadn't told Rumple and Henry about it – the two people who loved Neal the most. Aside from the idiocy of not telling Henry about it when he had specifically asked in "Souls of the Departed," responding with a vague and asinine "I just know" when Henry asked how Emma knew Neal was in a better place, Rumple not knowing about the vision cause him to use the crystal ball to try to find Neal in the Underworld, which inadvertently brought his and Belle's unborn child to Hades' attention, after which Hades sought out the healer and took over the contract for Rumple's second-born child. I wanted to fix that somewhat and for someone to call Emma on her selfish actions and what they have cost, and with the fact that Henry is using the pen to write their stories without his even thinking about what he is writing, I found the perfect way to do it._

* * *

Henry was no longer surprised at the stories coming out of the Author's Pen without conscious thought on his part as to what he was writing. He was just very curious about how it was happening. There was so much that he did not know about being the Author yet. He had thought to ask the Apprentice, but had not seen him in since that day in the forest. The Apprentice was dead and would no longer be available as a resource once they returned to Storybrooke anyway.

It had occurred to him that there was someone else who might know how the Author's Pen worked – his grandfather. He knew Rumplestiltskin had done a lot of research into the Author for his own purposes in trying to write the darkness out of the story. He had not seen his grandfather in the last couple of days either, however - not since the day he had shown up at the loft and had helped his mother get into Hades' lair to rescue Hook. Afterwards, when they had all met up at Emma's house, he had not stuck around, going back to whatever he had been doing off on his own in the Underworld.

He had asked Belle the morning after she had arrived in the Underworld if she had seen his grandfather and knew where he was. She said that she had run into him in the library, but that they had not had long to talk before she had left to find Robin and Regina so that she could deliver baby Hood to them. She had added that she intended to find him again, but by the time she had returned with Robin and Regina to the loft, she had been too tired and it had been too late, so she had planned to wait until that morning to seek him out, telling Henry that she assumed he would be in one of two places – the pawn shop or their home.

Henry had thought about asking if he could accompany her, but something in her tone had stopped him. Were his grandparents fighting again? Had she found out that he was the Dark One again? Guessing that whatever she wanted to discuss with his grandfather she wanted to do alone, he had instead asked if she could pass along a message that he wanted to talk to his grandfather. With a tentative smile which did not seem to quite reach her eyes, she had promised to let Rumplestiltskin know.

She had not returned to the loft that night, which Henry hoped was a good sign and that it meant his grandparents were together. He had really hoped they would have a new start together after he had talked her into returning to Storybrooke. Yes, his grandfather was the Dark One again, but he was optimistic that they could find a way to deal with that once Belle knew. He knew their original story from his book. They had managed to fall in love and share True Love's Kiss back in the Enchanted Forest when his grandfather had been more Dark One than man. He was sure that they could still find their way back to each other in spite of him being the Dark One again.

Although he was upset that the darkness had not been banished as they had all thought – the darkness had caused so much damage to his family, going back hundreds of years before he had been born, to his father's childhood - he knew after the disaster of the seven weeks that his mother and Hook had been Dark Ones that if anyone was capable of handling the darkness, his grandfather could, especially with his cleansed heart.

Yes, Rumplestiltskin had faltered badly there at the end before the Apprentice had pulled the darkness from him, but he could see why that might have happened, between the horror of his captivity at Zelena's hands, Neal's death and the darkness burning away the last of his human soul. He just wished someone would have recognized the signs that something was wrong and could have help pull his grandfather back from the precipice before it had been too late.

While they had been in Camelot, his mother had told them of a conversation she'd had with Merlin, about a prophesy of someone who would be able to balance the light and the darkness. Everyone, including Merlin, had assumed that as the Savior, his mother had been that person. If they were all honest, however, it was now obvious that based on the events of the last two months, she had _not_ been that person. As much as Henry loved his mother, he had to admit that she could not have screwed things up more if she had consciously tried.

What if his grandfather was that person, as unlikely as it might seem to those who knew him – or at least claimed to know him, as he doubted that anyone aside from Belle and Baelfire truly knew him at all? When the Apprentice had pulled the darkness from him, he had restored to Rumplestiltskin a newly-cleansed _white_ heart, and then Emma had forced him to become a hero in order to pull Excalibur from the stone.

Henry was not sure yet what that meant – he was hoping a story would be written eventually which might help explain that – but he could not deny that his grandfather had seemed different since he had become the Dark One again. There was a calmness, a steadiness to him that Henry could not recall having seen in his grandfather before, except for maybe those couple of days after they had returned from Neverland, but even that he was not entirely sure of, since he had spent a good part of that time trapped in Pan's body in Pandora's Box.

First things first. He would go to seek out his grandfather, but only after he had thoroughly checked out the new stories which the pen had produced. So far the stories that had come out of the Author's Pen had been fairly inconsequential – although his other grandparents had found some comfort in the story about his baby uncle hearing their voices – but he did not want to risk not going through the new pages and end up missing something.

His plans for the day firmly fixed in his head, he picked up the pages and started to read. He had barely gotten past the first page when he stopped reading in surprise. _What the…._ Going back to the beginning, he slowly read through what was written again, shocked at what he was reading. Why had she not told him? He had asked her, that first day in the Underworld, and she said nothing about this, nothing at all. Hesitantly, he continued reading, his shock quickly turning to anger and fear as he read through all three stories which had come out of the pen.

After he finished reading, he dropped the pages to the bed. He did not want this to be true, but it had come out directly of the Author's Pen – unlike Isaac, he had not done anything to influence the stories that were written, so far letting the pen record only what had happened. It was not hard to draw the obvious conclusion from what he had read. Emma had kept one little secret from the two people to whom it would matter the most and now another member of his family was in danger from Hades. In the jumble of his thoughts, one thing pushed its way to the forefront of his mind.

 _Emma, how could you do this to us?  
_

* * *

Once downstairs, he grabbed his coat from near the door and put it on, folding up the new pages and tucking them away in the inside chest pocket along with the pen and a few blank pages. Maybe he would have use of them once he found his grandparents.

"Where are you going?" Emma asked. Taking a deep breath, he turned around to find both of his mothers watching him warily from the kitchen as they removed takeout containers from the diner from bags and set them on the counter.

He shrugged. "Out," he simply replied. He did not really want to explain right now. He was not sure he could restrain himself from starting an argument over thing something Emma obviously did not want to talk about.

"Not alone, you're not," Regina countered. "It's dangerous out there."

Henry rolled his eyes. "Yeah," he muttered sarcastically, "it was so dangerous when you left me alone in the Sorcerer's mansion to play lookout. Anyway, I won't be alone – at least not as soon as I find who I'm looking for."

All the adults exchanged looks. He knew they could not deny that they had been leaving him alone a lot while they all did their own things. He had even managed to sneak off with Cruella without anyone knowing about it until he had confessed later. It had occurred to him to wonder what the initial fuss about the Underworld was. Emma had gotten mad at his grandfather for supposedly scaring him when Hook had been threatening to send them all to the Underworld in exchange for the Dark Ones.

To be honest, he had not been all _that_ scared, either then or now. Maybe it was the fact that he had yet to run into Hades. Maybe it was the probability that it was unlikely that any of the souls trapped there had any unfinished business with him. The only person that he could think of who might have unfinished business with him he had already been told was not there.

Reminded of his real reason for insisting on coming along on the trip to the Underworld, he steeled his resolve. He was not going to let anyone try to talk him out of this. There was simply too much at stake now.

"Henry, we just don't want anything to happen to you," David said in a placating tone as he and Snow came out of their bedroom area. "You put some pages in your coat. Did something turn up that we need to know about?"

"There's nothing new that has to do directly with anyone in this room," Henry replied truthfully, if deliberately vague.

At least one person caught the implication behind his words. "But something new _did_ turn up," Regina guessed.

"Henry, just tell us what it is," Snow urged, "maybe we can help, if there is someone who has some unfinished business."

He couldn't stop the snicker that escaped. "I don't think so," he replied in a short tone.

"You know, lad," Hook said from where he was leaning lazily against the counter, "you're sounding a lot like the Crocodile there."

 _So much for just letting things go for now after Grandpa helped get him out of Hades' lair_ , Henry thought. "If you are referring to my _grandfather_ ," he said testily, "maybe I do. Or maybe I'm just tired of watching all of you disregard him when he isn't useful _to you_ , when you can't blackmail him into doing something _for you_."

"Henry," Emma said calmly, coming out from around the counter to stand next to Hook, "that was necessary. Rumplestiltskin's blood was the only way for us to call Charon to bring us down here."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to tell Grandma Belle that the next time I see her," he said sarcastically, "that it was _necessary_ for you to use her as a tool to blackmail her husband with."

Snow held up her hands in a gesture to stop, trying to play peacemaker. "I'm sure that's not what Emma meant. Belle is…"

"Is what?" he interrupted. "A person with feelings, who deserves to know that her husband is the Dark One again? If that's true, why not just tell her as soon as Mom figured it out? But that wasn't convenient _to you_ , was it? If she knew, you wouldn't have had anything to blackmail Grandpa with. Not that it matters anymore, anyway." He tapped his coat over the pocket where the new pages were tucked away. "He told her the truth as soon as he saw her when she first got here two days ago. She already knew when she was over here that night."

"Oh," Emma said. Henry hated thinking it of his own mother, but he thought she almost sounded disappointed. After all, they still had to figure out how to get out of the Underworld. He thought it probably would be sooner rather than later before someone got the idea to approach his grandfather about that one, notwithstanding the fact that his grandfather wanted to get out of there as much as the rest of them, perhaps even more so now.

"It's not like she wasn't going to find out anyway," he pointed out. "Didn't it all seem a little too easy to you?"

At their puzzled looks, he continued, "Do you think it was going to remain a secret forever? Or that Grandpa thought he could keep it a secret? Isn't it obvious? He _wanted_ to come down here." When none of them had an answer for that, he changed tactics.

He turned to Emma and took a deep breath. "Mom, when I went looking for Dad," he said, "how did you know he wasn't here, that he was in a better place?"

"Um…" she stuttered, a panicked look crossing her face. She had to know where he was going with the question. He had already asked her once, but she had more or less brushed him off. She would not be able to do that this time. "Well…"

"Emma?" David asked gently, realizing that there was something she was not telling them.

Henry watched his mother grow even more uncomfortable as every eye in the room turned to her. When she did not reply to his question after a moment, Henry said, "I know, Mom. I know what you told Milah."

"Swan?" Hook said, reaching out to take her left hand in his good hand. Emma did not even seem to notice the gesture, still watching her son with wary eyes.

"Milah?" Snow asked in confusion. She did not seem to recall if she had ever heard that name before.

"My dad's mother," Henry replied, "the one who abandoned him when he was a child. She's the one that Grandpa went to for help getting down into Hades' lair. Mom told her when they were down there that she had seen a vision of Dad."

To Emma, he said, "You told her that he told you he was happy, that he was in a better place."

"Well, that's good, right?" Snow said brightly. Henry ignored her, not in the mood for any cheery optimism, as if there were such a thing in the Underworld. "Your dad isn't trapped here with all the other souls with unfinished business."

Regina let out a startled gasp, the only one who apparently made the connection that Henry was getting at. "Rumple wanted to come down here," she said in realization. "He let Emma blackmail him. He wanted to come down here to look for Neal."

Henry blew out a sharp breath, trying to contain his swirling emotions. "Remember when I said I would have found a way to come anyway if you'd tried to leave me behind?" he asked. "All I wanted was the same thing that Grandpa wanted – to find Dad. So how could you tell Milah – the woman who _abandoned_ my dad and Grandpa 300 years ago – that you saw him and he was happy? You wouldn't tell me when I _asked you directly_. According to these pages, you didn't tell Grandpa. He only found out because he was standing there when you shared the story with Milah. I only found out because of the Author's Pen. How could you tell Milah and not Grandpa and me? Why?"

Finally, Emma replied to his pointed questions. "I – I thought it might hurt you more," she said quietly, "to tell you that he had appeared to me and not you….and, I didn't…it never occurred to me…"

"What?" Henry interjected angrily. "It never occurred to you to tell a grieving father that his son was _not_ in the Underworld and that he was happy in a better place than this? How could it have not occurred to you? Aren't you supposed to be the Savior, the one to bring back all the happy endings? Do you even realize what you've done? Do you even care?"

Henry spun around suddenly, blinking his eyes, trying to hide the unshed tears. After a moment, he felt an arm go around his shoulder. "Henry, of course Emma cares," Snow said in a placating tone. "She just didn't want to hurt you. I'm sure if he could have, Neal would have appeared to you, too."

He turned back around, shrugging off his grandmother's comforting embrace. "That's not the point, not anymore," he said with a shaky voice. "Not now…" He paused to take another deep breath, but it did no good. He just could not get past his anger at his mother, not now when yet another life was at stake.

"Henry, why don't you just tell us?" Regina asked. "You're upset about something, but we can't help if you won't tell us what it is."

He just barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah, because all of you have cared so much about Grandpa in the past," he said. "I know you refused to help Belle when she _came to all of you_ for help after Emma kidnapped him."

At their shocked expressions, he shrugged. "I overheard Mom and Robin talking about it later. That hurt – it hurt a lot that none of you could be bothered to lift a finger to help _my_ grandfather. Isn't that what heroes are supposed to do – help people? Grandpa was in a coma, weak and powerless, and _none of you cared,_ even though he knew more about the darkness than anyone and could have helped _._ It's not like we got anything useful out of Merlin, which you guys thought was a higher priority than saving _both_ of my grandparents' lives."

"Henry…" Snow began, unable to continue. What could she say? What could any of them say? Unless they were all planning to apologize – Emma for the kidnapping itself and her subsequent actions towards Belle and the rest of them for their callous inaction – there was nothing to say, and Henry knew better than to expect them to express any regrets. Oh, they might apologize to _him_ that the situation had upset him, but he doubted that any of them would think that they owed either of his grandparents an apology without being told.

"Something else is going on," Regina said. "This isn't all about something that happened several days ago while Emma had the darkness influencing her actions. There's something else."

"Do you even hear yourself, Mom?" Henry demanded. Regina's eyes widened at the vehemence in his tone now directed at her instead of Emma. "Why was it the darkness' fault when Emma or Hook did it, but not when it was Grandpa doing dark things? That sounds pretty hypocritical to me."

David sighed. "I guess it is," he admitted after an uncomfortable minute. "Maybe it is because none of us except Hook have known Gold as anything except the Dark One. We never thought about what being the Dark One actually means." He glanced around the room, an uncomfortable look on his face. "I guess we still don't think about it now that your Mom isn't the Dark One anymore."

"Please, Henry," Snow said, "just tell us what the story says. We can't even begin to make anything better if we don't know what's wrong. Regina's right – there is something else going on."

Henry sighed. He wanted to believe that they were sincere, but that was hard to do when it seemed that he and Belle were the only ones who thought that his grandfather was still a person with feelings, even as the Dark One. "Remember when Grandpa showed up here, telling Mom he knew a way to go down into Hades' lair to rescue Hook?" he asked.

Except for Hook, they all nodded and he pressed, "Didn't he sound a little desperate to you when he insisted that he wanted to get home to Grandma Belle?"

There were more nods. "I guess we can understand that," Snow admitted reluctantly. "David and I feel the same about Neal – that's why we used the phone booth to contact him. But you're trying to tell us there was something more going on, right?"

Henry nodded. "According to one of the new stories that the pen wrote," he explained, "before he came over here to get Mom, Grandpa cast a spell seeking out his child in a crystal ball. The spell attracted the attention of Hades…"

He trailed off, realizing that the next part was going to make little sense without the background from one of the other stories that had just been written. "A long time ago," he said, drawing looks of confusion from everyone at the change of direction, "when Dad was a kid, before Milah had left, Dad was bitten by an Atlantean rat snake and was dying."

"I lost one of my crew to one of those snakes once," Hook cut in to explain. "They're very deadly – within 24 hours without the antidote. As I recall, they were fairly common in the Frontlands where Bae grew up. It was during one of our stops there that my guy got bit and we couldn't find a healer in time. But what does something that happened over 300 years ago have to do with anything now?"

"They couldn't afford the antidote," Henry explained, barely resisting rolling his eyes at the interruption. "Milah suggested – well, that part doesn't really matter. Bottom line, the healer ended up offering Grandpa a deal – the antidote in exchange for Grandpa signing a contract, a contract that Hades got a hold of from the healer – who is here in the Underworld, apparently – and which Hades is now trying to enforce."

"What was the contract for, Henry?" David asked as Henry clenched and unclenched his hands into fists, trying to keep his anger from overwhelming him again.

"It was for Grandpa's second-born child," he replied. "According to what was written in one of the new stories, Grandpa thought he and Milah would not have another child together, so it was a safe deal to make, even if he said he didn't really know much about deals back then. Then he – when he cast the spell the other day to show him his child…"

"It didn't show Neal," Regina said with a gasp, realization dawning. "The spell showed Rumple's _second-born_ child." She glanced around the room, and because of the confused looks from everyone else, Henry realized that she was the only one who had made the connection so far. "His _unborn_ second child - Belle's pregnant and Hades is trying to enforce the contract and take the baby…"

She stopped, covering her mouth with her hand as she suddenly looked very ill. "Regina, what is it?" Snow asked in a worried tone.

"Yesterday, when I saw Zelena in the diner and she told me that she had known Hades," Regina continued after dropping her hand, "she said he had originally approached her in Oz expressing interest in her time travel spell. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now…"

Snow and David suddenly looked as ill as Regina, all-too-recent memories brought to the forefront of their thoughts at Regina's revelation. "Oh, gods," Snow gasped, "Hades wants to replicate Zelena's spell…"

"…and just like Zelena, he wants to use my unborn aunt or uncle to do it," Henry finished in barely concealed anger.

"Well, then we stop him," Emma said matter-of-factly. "Anyway, a baby is only one of the ingredients…"

"Except that Hades has access to the other three ingredients," Regina reminded her. "That could be why Hades picked the names that he did for the tombstones. I would be the heart again and Rumple the brain – instead of David, he could be planning to use Snow this time for the courage. Either one would work."

"We stopped Zelena," Emma insisted. "We can stop the spell again."

"Except you didn't stop Zelena, remember?" Henry cut in, his anger showing even more. "Her portal was still opened somehow and you and Hook fell through. But that's not the point. You still don't get it, do you?"

Emma shook her head. "Get what?" she asked.

"If you had bothered to tell Grandpa about seeing Dad," he retorted, "if you had just shown even the tiniest bit of consideration, this wouldn't have happened! He would have already known _not_ to look for Dad in the Underworld. The spell he cast to find Dad is what attracted Hades' attention to the baby."

"Just wait a minute," Hook said, "It's not your mother's fault the Crocodile signed away rights to his own child."

"You _still_ don't get it," Henry yelled, taking a step forward. "The healer is dead! The contract should have been moot, but Mom couldn't be bothered to tell us – tell Grandpa – that she had seen Dad. If she had, Grandpa would have _known_ not to go looking for Dad. It was when he cast the spell which showed him Grandma Belle instead of Dad that Hades found out there was a baby."

He grabbed the story pages out of his coat and shook them at Emma. "It was _after_ that when Hades found the healer in the Underworld and decided to take over the contract," he continued. "My aunt or uncle is in danger from the God of the Underworld because of what you _didn't_ do!"

He spun around and yanked the door open, striding out of the loft and slamming the door behind him. Stuffing the pages back into his coat, he raced down the steps, taking them two at a time. He had to get out of there, to take the new stories to his other grandparents. After what Hades had done to them the previous day, as detailed in the third story which had just been written, maybe _they_ could find some clue in what the Author's Pen was writing which _would_ help them defeat Hades.

* * *

 _ **More author's notes** : – This is a stand-alone story, but I did leave it open-ended if the urge ever strikes me to write a continuation. Right now, I don't anticipate that, because continuing the story would require dealing with the events of "Ruby Slippers" and I really don't want to deal with THAT mess in regards to Rumbelle (unless I turn the entire thing into an AU and re-write the events of that episode)._

 _The three stories that came out of the Author's Pen which have upset Henry in this story are as follows – 1) The present-day events of "Devil's Due" centering around Rumple, Emma and Milah (although it is not mentioned here, you can assume that Henry knows Rumple pushed Milah into the River of Lost Souls, which is one of the reasons why Henry does not actually show the pages to the rest of the family – he wants to show them to Rumple first and doesn't want to risk everyone else trying to insist he stay away from Rumple if they learn what really happened to Milah), 2) The flashback events of "Devil's Due" centering around the contract Rumple signed to save Bae and 3) The present-day events of "Our Decay" and "Her Handsome Hero" centering on Belle learning about her pregnancy, the contract and the Dark One and Rumbelle trying to keep their baby from Hades, ending with Belle pushing Gaston into the River of Lost Souls.  
_


End file.
